


Winter Journey

by Smileymask



Category: One Piece
Genre: Angst, Classical Music, Gen, Introspection, Origin Story, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:41:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25214074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smileymask/pseuds/Smileymask
Summary: Were there songs about a life wasted in the dark? Was such a song worth singing?Stranded in the Florian Triangle, Brook reflects on music, memories, and his life.Set between Brook losing his shadow and Brook meeting the Straw Hats.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 18





	Winter Journey

_Over there beyond the village_

_Stands an organ-grinder,_

_And with numb fingers_

_He plays as best he can._

_No one listens to him,_

_No one notices him,_

_And the dogs growl_

_Around the old man._

It was from a song cycle Brook had accompanied once, when he’d been a student at the Music Conservatory. It was a famous one, about a young man rejected by his lover, roaming the countryside in the dead of winter.

Not that he was a young man anymore, nor that it was winter in the Florian Triangle, nor that he was on land, nor that he had been rejected by his lover, yo ho ho ho! He’d never had much luck with women in the first place. But specifics aside, the songs brought him comfort. The music seemed to understand him, even though it did not know him at all.

The memories of the Conservatory, now sixty-odd years ago, were almost lost to him by now. Brook half-imagined a smell of wood and resin, a piano with a deep rich timbre. He did remember, though, that the baritone classmate he'd accompanied had gone on to become a world-famous interpreter of art songs.

The piano on the Rumbar Pirates' ship had been no Steinway in the first place, and over the years it had decayed to the point that it could no longer really be called a piano at all. It was quite appallingly out of tune, and many strings had rusted and broken. The fiddles and cellos left behind by his late crewmates were in similar condition.

The instruments, really, were symbolic of what Brook’s life after death was all about; the slow breakdown of the things that sustained his soul, and adapting to ever-worsening conditions because he had no choice otherwise.

* * *

Some seventy years ago, the Bruckners had been a well-to-do family in West Blue. Back then he had had a governess and piano lessons and fencing lessons. It had been a happy and warm childhood, full of music and affection.

And, as a small boy, how he had adored the perennial classic, Brahms' Lullaby, and made his mother sing it to him over and over!

He had forgotten her face and her voice, but her name was Clara and she had been the most beautiful woman he had ever known. Her voice, surely, must have been that of an angel when she sang to him:

_Good evening, good night,_

_Canopied with roses,_

_Bedecked with carnations,_

_Slip beneath the coverlet._

_Tomorrow morning, if God wills,_

_You shall be woken again._

_Good evening, good night,_

_Watched over by angels!_

_In your dreams they’ll show you_

_The Christmas Tree:_

_Sleep sweetly now and blissfully,_

_Behold Paradise in your dreams._

When he got a little bigger they played duets, his mother playing the violin and he the piano accompaniment. He loved music, and it seemed that music loved him back. There was no question that he would go to the Music Conservatory to devote his life to the study of the art.

* * *

Sometimes, furious storms hit the Florian Triangle for days on end and Brook feared that his decaying ship would finally crumble, or that his frail bones would be blown overboard. On those days, Brook cheered himself up with the military song that had been popular, in the years when he’d fought in the war. It was a cheerful tune, the tight-jawed cheer of men wilfully turning a blind eye to death, accompanied by whistles and the tramp of boots.

In those days his convoy had had to fight through rains of artillery fire from enemy ships; compared to that, it reminded him that this storm was something he could yet endure. 

_Pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag_

_And smile, smile, smile,_

_While you've a lucifer to light your fag,_

_Smile, boys, that's the style._

_What's the use of worrying?_

_It never was worth while_

_So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag_

_And smile, smile, smile._

Even in life, Brook had been no stranger to endurance. When he was seventeen, the military kingdom of Germa invaded West Blue, and his parents were killed in a bombing.

He had no choice but to drop out of the Conservatory and take part in battle. A connection of his father’s had taken pity on the poor orphan and arranged so that he could serve as an officer instead of an enlisted man.

He was a good fencer, and he rose in the ranks to be the leader of his convoy. His subordinates in the convoy soon became his second family. They gave affectionate nicknames to his sword techniques, badges of honor he treasured more than any rank or medals.

But, alas, his second family was soon taken from him as well, after they defeated Germa and the war ended. Some had been killed in action, but the real parting happened when the kingdom they had served disbanded the now-superfluous convoy, and scattered the soldiers adrift to fend for themselves.

* * *

When Brook's soul first returned to his bones, he found out that the ship’s rudder had broken and that he was well and truly stranded. He had been alarmed, desperate and rash.

He had sent out messages in bottles, using up precious paper and ink, in the vain hope that any ship would risk themselves to come and search for him in the infamous Florian Triangle.

His heart had leapt out of his throat whenever he saw a ship passing by, only to be utterly crushed again when he discovered that it was a ghost ship like his own.

_From the highroad a posthorn sounds._

_Why do you leap so high, My heart?_

_The post does not bring a letter for you,_

_Why the strange compulsion, My heart?_

His heart never seemed to learn the lesson that hope was meaningless.

Even after years and years adrift, after Brook had long given up on counting the days, he still had not learned to forsake hope. When Brook first came upon Thriller Bark, it had, ironies of ironies, felt like salvation. A whole island on a ship, complete with vegetation and buildings; surely it must offer him some means of escape!

The frightening ordeal of Thriller Bark had gone by like a whirlwind, but when the dust settled, Brook took stock of his gains and losses. Brook had lost, obviously, his shadow. What was his prize? His prize seemed to amount to a sort of reality-check.

Brook had found out the current date while he was on Thriller Bark, and discovered that forty-five years had passed since the Rumbar Pirates’ demise. That knowledge had filled him with some wordless, dumb horror - but he accepted it quickly enough, because why should it not be forty-five years?

Brook had found out that his shadow, that he'd never thought of as a separate entity from himself, nor as something he could ever lose, could split from him and turn against him. 

Ryuma had been a chilling mirror of Brook, callous and sadistic. Ryuma used Brook’s own voice and mannerisms and sword techniques to mock him. He was inconceivably strong, far stronger than his master; Brook knew in his heart that he had no hope of overcoming Ryuma on his own.

  
  
  


Thriller Bark had served to remind Brook that life could still get worse; that even when he thought his existence had hit rock bottom, there was yet somewhere lower to fall.

Other than Laboon, this was partly the reason why Brook would not attempt the obvious thing, which was to dive into the sea and try his luck with death.

Brook could never be sure that even the sea, the great equalizer, would be enough to put an end to his second existence. He no longer needed to breathe - would he indeed drown, if he fell into the sea? Or would he sink to the bottom and remain there in the company of Davy Jones, unable to move or sing, but still alive?

  
  
  


Even so, Brook wouldn’t say that Thriller Bark had been all bad. 

It had made unexpected blessings out of a previous curse. Over the years Brook had grown to detest the dreary clouds and fog of the Florian Triangle, but he appreciated it now, as it was his lifeline.

Brook had started counting the days again, and he trained his swordsmanship every day, preparing for the fight with Ryuma that might or might not happen in the future.

He had gained another unattainable goal to overcome, as distant as reaching the Moon, as impossible as going back to Laboon; but perhaps even that was better than nothing.

  
  


* * *

Though Brook’s body needed nothing to sustain itself, the remnants of his soul required comfort. 

Crying and bemoaning his fate got old very quickly; and after a while it became entirely inappropriate. At this point, Brook could see nothing but some detached cosmic irony in his situation.

He drank tea, or rather just plain rainwater that he collected in a pail. He just wanted the semblance of normalcy, a reminder of his life, before. Drinking seawater was simply unpleasant, and it left him lethargic and sick until he eventually expelled it from his system. 

He amused himself with little games, like pretending to be scandalized by his own underwear or propping himself up on the railings at a specific angle.

  
  
  


Brook clung to his memories obsessively, because without them he would no longer be human.

He took to writing down names and songs and events, everything he could think of, but he'd already thrown away so much paper and ink. He really regretted sending out all those messages in a bottle, now.

He recited names and events in his mind, unwilling to let the smallest detail escape. As though he were in a desert and trying to keep his last handful of water from slipping out his fingers.

By now the faces and sensations had faded, and all he had left were the verbal components of his memories, names and dates, like people in a history book. 

The recording of Binks’ Brew was the one memory that he had left that was incorruptible; the only proof that a life outside of this grey limbo had ever existed, that Brook had not always been alone.

He could spend hours replaying the Tone Dial, picking out individual voices and matching them to their owners’ names.

  
  
  


Over the years he lost papers and pens, books rotted through, teacups shattered, and the keys on the piano stopped working. And each loss seemed a countdown to the day that he would be left really and truly destitute.

This was the reality of his second life, a constant losing fight against attrition and decay.

How long until all the papers decayed, all the teacups broke, and all the keys on the piano stopped working?

How long until his ship finally fell apart and plunged him to a watery grave?

How long until all his memories faded and all that remained were his animated bones and all he knew was the darkness?

* * *

Brook was presently in a vast concert hall, illuminated by stage lights, standing tall on the conductor's podium. In truth, he was still drifting in the Florian Triangle, but inhabiting a fantasy, about to conduct a symphony in his mind. It was a dear fantasy that he had held in his heart since he was a boy.

Brook's parents had once taken him to a performance of the Resurrection Symphony, the Maestro himself conducting his own score. The symphony had been unlike any music the young Brook had ever heard, with unprecedented scale and grandeur, its heart-soaring climax promising immortality and wisdom unknown to man. A young boy he’d been, just beginning in the Conservatory, but even now that performance remained the single most electrifying moment of his life. 

He had decided that day that his life’s dream was to become a conductor. 

  
  
  


Brook stood with his arms down solemnly, imagining the orchestra and choir spread out before him, poised at attention; the audience, in respectful silence, looming in the darkness behind.

The Maestro had composed ten magnificent symphonies, but the Resurrection Symphony would always be Brook’s favorite.

Of course, the other works excelled in different facets - the Fifth its anger, the Sixth its cohesive drama, the Seventh its modernity, the Eighth its epic scale, The Song of the Earth its feeling of eternity, the Ninth its profundity. But the Resurrection Symphony seemed to have a little bit of everything.

Brook would now run the symphony through his mind, over the whole ninety minutes. As a boy he had studied and analyzed the score in great detail. Brook could not be sure of the exact orchestration any more, but he still remembered all the passages and the narrative of the music.

  
  
  


Brook lifted up his cane. The first movement started with a funeral march; a dead man’s journey of anger and disbelief. The funeral march fumbled, developed, and grew into something almost approaching hope, until the Dies Irae rang out clear in the brass and reminded them in no uncertain terms that the man was, indeed, dead. A mutinous storm, then the recapitulation, and then a moment of pastoral peace - a foreshadowing of the relief to come - then the movement ended in dark ambivalence.

The Maestro had called for five minutes of silence between the first and second movements. Brook could not recall if the Maestro had observed it himself in the performance he’d attended, but Brook was always too impatient to follow it himself.

Brook segued immediately into the simple, placid beauty of the second movement. Conducting this movement, Brook always let himself be reminded of the peaceful times in his life, the Waltzes of his childhood and the sea songs of the Rumbar Pirates. It was interrupted by moments of unease, for what happiness could last uninterrupted? Brook made sure to keep the momentum flowing as the movement came down from its tense climax; Brook preferred a light, subtle touch to this movement, as there would be bitterness and glory aplenty in the following movements.

If the first movement was anger, the third was cynicism. The mocking woodwinds darted this way and that like the fishes unheeding of St. Anthony’s sermon. Of course, the movement could not be reduced down to a single word; nothing about the Maestro’s works could be. Moments of unexpected grandeur occurred throughout, and the movement ended with a heartfelt scream of agony before dying down.

Then the movement transitioned seamlessly into the meditative lament of the fourth movement. It was really the mezzo-soprano who carried this movement. The conductor need only set the stage for her to breathe, as she lamented the fate of mankind and longed for eternity in the presence of God.

And finally, the drama at the heart of the work. The fifth movement opened with a shattering cataclysm that rattled Brook’s bones, the symbolic end of the world. All the souls rose from their graves, and wandered in confusion. The faltering, confused music rallied into another march, just as driving as the first movement, that ended in another passionate scream, the last moment of anger and pain in the symphony.

Then, a tense, transparent stillness, broken only by woodwinds and the distant ringing of off-stage brass, like the trumpets of angels at the Day of Judgment, an uncommon technique that the Maestro implemented to great effect.

It heralded the appearance of the vocal parts, the choir emerging whisper-soft from the gloom, and from here the symphony would explore bliss and salvation in all its facets. The choir, the orchestra, and the soprano and mezzo-soprano soloists intertwined into the defeat of pain and the triumph over death. Now the climax was approaching, _Die shall I in order to live--_

Brook waved his cane with abandon, lost in ecstasy, singing along to the tenor part of the choir at the top of his nonexistent lungs. He liked to slow down the tempo as much as he could in this passage; done right, it could extend the climax into an endless plateau, seemingly hanging in the heavens for an eternity.

_Rise again, yes, you shall rise again_

_My heart, in a split second!_

_What you have endured_

_Shall carry you to God!_

The golden coda, with its triumphant trumpets and deep timpani rolls, faded in his mind.

The applauding audience and the stage lights faded as well, leaving Brook back in the grey fog.

A symphony must be like the world, Brook had heard it quoted from the Maestro, and while Brook had been alive it indeed had felt like the Resurrection Symphony contained the world and many more unfathomed mysteries besides.

But how dreary the reality of Resurrection was; for once the Symphony could not encompass the world. Brook’s life was something entirely beyond the pale of human experience, beyond even the Maestro’s comprehension. 

* * *

He'd made a living playing in a bar, after his honorable discharge from the military.

Times had changed, and people did not sing folk songs or art songs anymore. The fashion of those times were show tunes and new popular music imported from overseas. 

It was a time or peace and prosperity, that even a cast-off as himself was not left much wanting. Brook did have his moments of bitterness, as when he read the newspaper and saw reports of Dietrich, his old classmate, on another World Tour. But life was all right. Life was easy, and boring. 

The show tunes of that period really didn’t leave much of an impression on him, but there was one he remembered that his coworker Ella, the singer, had liked. Brook himself had found it rather maudlin and melodramatic when he played it in the bar:

_Out on the ocean_

_Sailors can use a chart_

_I'm on the ocean_

_Guided by just a lonely heart_

_Still alone, still at sea_

_Still there's no one to care for me_

_When there's no hand to hold your hand_

_Life is a loveless tale_

_For a ship without a sail_

An ironic assessment, as this song mirrored Brook's life so closely.

Brook had lived a drifter's life ever since his parents had left him. Drifting with no dream, drifting from one temporary family to the next. Drifting in the Florian triangle, after his death, with no one to hold his hand.

He was all too aware that he had left his poor Laboon to the same fate. The young whale had chosen Brook to be his parent, and Brook knew not to take the responsibility lightly. Laboon had been the closest thing to a son that he'd ever had, as well; they’d even held some sort of family resemblance, between Laboon's glossy head and Brook's own afro.

It broke his heart to think of the poor child, crying out with no one to sing with him. How alone he must feel, how betrayed. For Brook knew too well what it was like to be forsaken by his loved ones. That he had inflicted the same pain on his son was unacceptable; that it had been involuntary was no excuse, in the end.

* * *

Captain Calico Yorki, a young man, came up to Brook one day in that bar in West Blue and asked him to join his crew.

Brook was content following Captain Yorki's dreams, as Brook was approaching middle-age and knew that the time for dreams had passed for him.

Not that Brook had needed any dreams to be happy among the Rumbar Pirates: his third family taught Brook a great many sea-shanties and fo'c'sle songs, and they’d always had time for merrymaking between their honest work.

Sometimes Brook could not forgive his crewmates for going on to the afterlife without him.

_Wrap me up in me oilskin and jumper_

_No more on the docks I'll be seen_

_Just tell me old shipmates_

_I'm taking a trip, mates_

_And I'll see you one day in Fiddler's Green_

_Now Fiddler's Green is a place I've heard tell_

_Where fishermen go when they don't go to Hell_

_There's pubs and there's clubs, and there's lassies there too_

_and the girls are all pretty and the beer it is free_

_And there's bottles of rum growing from every tree_

His crewmates would have gone on to Fiddler’s Green, Brook was sure. They had no reason to go to Hell; the Rumbar Pirates had only called themselves pirates because they had set sail unauthorized by the World Government. Their only goal had been to circumnavigate the Grand Line, not to plunder or to conquer; they had been nothing like the infamous Rocks Pirates who had started terrorizing the Grand Line some years before Brook’s death.

Brook himself did not remember much of the afterlife. In fact, he suspected his Devil Fruit had snatched him back to the living plane before he could make it to Fiddler's Green, or Hell.

His spirit had roamed the seas like a bird, but he had not even thought to enjoy his freedom while he could, too fixated on the idea of his body, rotting somewhere in the fog.

If he'd known that his soul would be inextricably tethered to his body afterwards, and he would have no choice but to remain there for decades, he would not have hurried so to return to his bones. 

Regrets, regrets. 

* * *

Tone Dials had been a new-fangled piece of technology that had emerged just a couple of years before his death. 

On some island on the Grand Line, Brook had bought a recording of a man, singing along to his own guitar accompaniment. The vendor had told him that this singer had sold his soul to the devil to become a master of the guitar, but Brook had been more intrigued by the new technology than the hyperbolic advertisement.

Brook didn’t understand the music entirely, as it was of a foreign and unfamiliar style, but it had kept his interest nonetheless:

_I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees_

_I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees_

_Asked the Lord above, "Have mercy, now, save poor Bob if you please"_

_Ooh, standin' at the crossroad, tried to flag a ride_

_Ooh-ee, I tried to flag a ride_

_Didn't nobody seem to know me, babe, everybody pass me by_

This very Tone Dial had been the one that Brook had ended up overwriting, in order to record the Rumbar Pirates’ swan song performance of Binks’ Brew. But the piece itself remained in his memory still, and Brook played it in his mind sometimes.

Brook wondered if the anonymous singer knew that his music still remained in someone's head, decades and decades after his performance. 

Brook fancied that he, too, might find it worthwhile to sell his soul to the devil, just to be remembered by one person. 

  
  


How he would have liked to make his mark on the world, leave a selfish imprint of his existence. Of course, Laboon must remember him, but for Laboon, Brook was not a fond memory but a gaping wound; this was not the kind of impression Brook had wanted to leave in this world.

His old classmates, they would have had full lives; would have gone on to have careers, marriages, children. How Brook envied even the most commonplace of lives, now.

Life had a way of cutting down to size one’s grandiose dreams, and death had a way of paring existence down to the very bones.

* * *

Sometimes, the music left Brook’s soul entirely and left him in a state of absolute lethargy. It could last for days at a time, and he could do nothing but lay in the cabin, depressed and unmoving.

Just an inert skeleton, for all intents and purposes.

But Brook knew it would pass, like a storm. He needed only weather it for a while, and the music would eventually come back to him.

_O blessed art, how often in dark hours,_

_When the savage ring of life tightens round me,_

_Have you kindled warm love in my heart,_

_Have transported me to a better world!_

_Often a sigh has escaped from your harp,_

_A sweet, sacred harmony of yours_

_Has opened up the heavens to better times for me,_

_O blessed art, I thank you!_

It saddened Brook, though, that there was no music to express this facet of his existence, this nothingness, that there was no wisdom to comfort him in the times that he needed music the most.

But then, why should there be songs about a life, wasted in the dark? Would such a song be worth singing?

What lessons could one find in this existence, without stimulus, without change, without growth, without human connection?

* * *

  
  


Brook both welcomed and dreaded his dreams. 

His dreams were the only time that his memories took on color, that he could see blue skies, or recall the faces along with the names, or hear the voices of his loved ones.

But when they ended they left him utterly bereft and anguished, abandoned all over again in his unavoidable reality.

He wondered which was better, to have those brief episodes of sweet respite once in a while, or to not sleep at all and avoid altogether the crushing reacquaintance with his deprivation.

He really couldn’t decide one way or another; the answer changed all the time, depending on his state of mind.

  
  
  


But tonight, he dreamt. 

He dreamt of unfamiliar faces sitting around an unfamiliar table.

“Join my crew,” a smiling young man entreated.

It was warm and bright, and a yellow-haired man offered Brook a feast of octopus dishes.

“I would, gladly, but I am dead and only bones, and I am bound here because I have lost my shadow,” Brook told the smiling young man.

Ryuma appeared, speak of the devil, and loomed over him, and made to stab Brook in his eye socket.

But Ryuma was cut down by a young hero, and a brawny metal man held Brook up so that he would not crumble to the ground.

Then they sang Binks’ Brew, all together. Brook felt supreme joy in their company, though he knew that they, too, would leave him in the end.

“We'll help you take back what’s yours, and then we’ll go together, back to Laboon.”

Hollow words, just a fleeting dream, but even for that Brook was grateful.

“Thank you, my dear boy, thank you; if only it could be true."

When he awoke, the dream melted away into nothing but a vague impression of warmth.

  
  


_Ah, a man as wretched as I am_

_Is glad to fall for the merry trick_

_That, beyond ice and night and fear,_

_Shows him a bright, warm house._

_And a loving soul within -_

_Only illusion lets me win!_

**Author's Note:**

> I'm really curious to see if Brook's past will be fleshed out in the manga. He has around 30 years of unexplored history, I feel like there's a lot Brook knows but is not telling us yet.
> 
> Lyrics and translations by:
> 
> \- Franz Schubert, Winterreise ("Der Leiermann," "Die Post," "Täuschung") - Translation by Celia A. Sgroi, http://www.gopera.com/winterreise/songs/note-en.mv  
> \- Johannes Brahms, "Wiegenlied" - Translation © Richard Stokes, author of The Book of Lieder, published by Faber, provided courtesy of Oxford Lieder (www.oxfordlieder.co.uk)  
> \- George Henry Powell, “Pack Up Your Troubles in Your Old Kit-Bag”  
> \- Gustav Mahler, Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection” - Translation adapted from Kenneth Woods, kennethwoods.net  
> \- Lorenz Hart and Richard Rodgers, “A Ship Without a Sail”  
> \- John Conolly, “Fiddler’s Green”  
> \- Robert Johnson, “Cross Road Blues”  
> \- Franz Schubert, “An die Musik” - Translation from Wikipedia
> 
> Some of the lyrics have been condensed. I tried to limit everything to pieces written before 1940, but “Fiddler’s Green” was apparently written in the 1960s.
> 
> I have no idea if Brook would like Mahler in canon, but the Resurrection Symphony just can't be passed up in a story about Brook.  
> Robert Johnson seems like a good real-life parallel to Brook as well, with the urban legend about him selling his soul to the Devil. He was also forgotten in life but had a resurgence decades later, remembered for a handful of recordings.
> 
> The last part of the Resurrection Symphony is modeled on Bernstein's video recording with the London Symphony Orchestra.
> 
> I have very little background knowledge of the history and music parts, so please feel free to correct me if you find something off.
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
